Beware Of Savants Bearing Miracle Cures

Or, TV pitchmen. Or the legendary inventor, Ron Popeil. Or supply chain gurus.

I've (too) often confessed to errors of anticipation in passing enthusiasms for the latest and greatest - and failures to foresee unlikely successes. The world of music has been particularly difficult to prognosticate. The vagaries that influence early promise or sustained prominence have parallels in supply chain management, and help us to understand how many geniuses can possibly get it wrong time after time.

In illustration, I'll offer up Death Cab for Cutie, for whom I foretold a certain future of "whatever happened to". Seventeen years and eight albums later, their latest work is haunting, and darkly poetic.  Then, the Rolling Stones.  Not convinced of their long-term appeal, not persuaded that music was changing forever, and doubting that they'd outlive drug-fueled hard living, I wisely saw a bleak, perhaps nonexistent, future.  Shortly, the Stones will play to a sold-out Ohio Stadium and its 108,000 seats.

On the other hand, I essayed the opinion that the vacuous Carly Rae Jepson was half a trick shy of being a one-trick pony, and she has since risen no further than a mercy appearance on SNL.  I can't yet hazard even a wild guess for Maddie and Tae, who do have a full one-trick but may be, like salmon going home to die, swimming upstream in the piranha-filled waters of the Nashville scene.  In a rare moment of triumph, I basked in the reflected glory of much-maligned Lady Gaga, as she channeled Julie Andrews in a stunning Sound of Music reprise on Oscar night.

In sometimes unsettling parallels, we encounter new, revolutionary, game-changing processes, practices, tools, and technologies in supply chain management.  Time overcomes some, new breakthroughs eclipse others, and some are merely solutions in search of problems.  But, we have to make snap judgments, quickly, and get on with getting better.

So, when and how much can we invest in AS/RS, or Kiva-type robotics, or visibility software, or ERP, or RFID?  And, when we decide to make a move, what happens to the processes involving, and the investment in, voice-directed activity, laser-guided vehicles, best-of-breed functional software, RF guns, four-wall GPS.  How about LMS; will the momentum fizzle, like the discredited stop-watch mavens of a generation ago?  Will upward pressures on minimum wages, and escalating burger-flipper compensation drive the adoption of previously too-costly automated solutions or technology enablers?

There's a lot at stake, and not a lot of room for error.  Can a sub-optimal choice work well enough to save our bacon?  Can an optimal choice that runs into snags destroy an enterprise?  Is someone else's definition of success enough to warrant our adoption of the latest market entry?  What are the chances for a longevity that would optimize performance and payback?  What are the threats coming to market that would make waiting for a next generation worth the risk of inaction?  What are the success and longevity factors anyway?

No wonder we have trouble sleeping at night . . .